Jim Cassidyhttps://jimcassidy.com.au
Official Website - One of the Greatest Jockeys in History
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]]>https://jimcassidy.com.au/studio-10-830am-weekdays-jim-cassidy/feed/0Jim Cassidy – This Racing Lifehttps://jimcassidy.com.au/jim-cassidy-this-racing-life/
https://jimcassidy.com.au/jim-cassidy-this-racing-life/#commentsWed, 12 Oct 2016 07:25:43 +0000http://jimcassidy.com.au/?p=468Jim Cassidy - One of just three jockeys to have ridden 100 Group One winners in Australia, Cassidy has won two Melbourne Cups, a Caulfield Cup and a Cox Plate, and today, the man known as ‘Pumper’ joins Michael Felgate in studio for This Racing Life.

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Jim Cassidy – One of just three jockeys to have ridden 100 Group One winners in Australia, Cassidy has won two Melbourne Cups, a Caulfield Cup and a Cox Plate, and today, the man known as ‘Pumper’ joins Michael Felgate in studio for This Racing Life. Click on the audio link above for the full interview…

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]]>https://jimcassidy.com.au/jim-cassidy-this-racing-life/feed/3How Jim Cassidy stayed at the top of the racing tree for so longhttps://jimcassidy.com.au/top-of-the-racing-tree-smh/
https://jimcassidy.com.au/top-of-the-racing-tree-smh/#respondTue, 27 Sep 2016 04:26:06 +0000http://jimcassidy.com.au/?p=161With a straw hat more Birdsville than Royal Ascot and shirt styled along Hawaiian lines with a Kuta influence, Malcolm Ayoub, the motivator who kept Jim Cassidy pumping, cut a stylish figure at Otto, the Woolloomooloo eating joint.

NEWS & EVENTS

With a straw hat more Birdsville than Royal Ascot and shirt styled along Hawaiian lines with a Kuta influence, Malcolm Ayoub, the motivator who kept Jim Cassidy pumping, cut a stylish figure at Otto, the Woolloomooloo eating joint.

Cassidy was so good, so old because of Ayoub, colourful in character as well as dress, who spent the good and bad times with the champion maintaining his fitness and mental health, no mean feat.

Now retired at 52 and a principal for an upcoming celebration day by the Australian Turf Club, Cassidy’s most epic ride, among many, was the 1997 Melbourne Cup when he primed and nursed Might And Power in front to run the Flemington 3200 metres.

Prior, before the cut off time in the Flemington jockey’s room, Ayoub rubbed and squeezed every ounce getting him to “medium rare, not overcooked” and at full pumping power. So when Doriemus, under the powerful persuasion of Greg Hall, made his move after others had softened Might And Power up, Cassidy was able to generate an extra 6cm out of his mount to score.

“I worked him in a hot room but maintained circulation,” Ayoub said, adding that he rubs or massages with his hands and inspired with strong words.

I first met Cassidy in 1981 after he won the Brisbane Cup on Four Crowns. Two years later he notched the Big One with Kiwi. I go back further with Ayoub to when the was running Sydney’s famous City To Surf – barefoot.

“I did it under an hour and charged past the Canberra contingent who had a handy stayer called [Robert] de Castella running with them,” he recalled. “When it got serious he picked me up pretty quick.”

Cassidy, too, is a stayer and one of the most notorious, in and out of the saddle. Few, if any, would be better credentialed in either category, topping the ton of group 1s a highlight, particularly considering enforced absences.

Because of a distinctive pumping style, I once described him as resembling “a dog shagging a boot”. He considered legal action based on the argument of the greater the truth, the greater the libel. On ground level he struck trouble: a three-month suspension for testing positive to marijuana. No sympathy asked for, none given.

Going back to when he was stable jockey for Brian Mayfield-Smith in Sydney he was outed over his handling of Cruising, serving hard time. Cruising never won another race even though exiled to South Australia. Thus Cruising went better for Cassidy, allegedly dead, than he did for others at full throttle.

Then came the jockey tapes scandal in 1995 for which he served 21 months; he lost so-called mates by the droves, but not Ayoub.

“It’s a chapter of my life that will make good reading one day,” he maintained a few years back and a biography is now being compiled by colleague Andrew Webster. “I’ll disclose all the truths: the people who gave me up, the people who I thought were great friends … I was supposedly fixing races and running Sydney racing.”

But the Pumper likes winning. Incidentally the title was given to him by Glen Robbins, one of the founders of the internet site Racenet.

While the brain and hands worked smoothly in unison decades of hard labour took another toll: Cassidy’s knees, back and feet started to show signs of wear and tear. “During a race consider the pressure he put on his toes,” Ayoub stressed. “The toes and the arches of his feet had been giving him pain, particularly in distance races.”

The impeded circulation and calluses were a problem, treated by Ayoub with emu oil.

Maybe Ayoub came pontificate like a naturopath although he came from a tough school attended by bush smarties and city slickers, skilled in the art of turf chicanery.

“Most jockeys have fantastic skin while they are young because the constant rubbing cleanses every part of the tissue that rubbish blocks up,” he diagnosed.

Using himself as a model Cassidy has mentioned marketing emu oil as a beauty product but now Ayoub, with more time on his hands, wants to concentrate on a men’s fashion line.

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]]>https://jimcassidy.com.au/top-of-the-racing-tree-smh/feed/0Retired jockey Jim Cassidy hits the jackpot with his first bet as a free manhttps://jimcassidy.com.au/hits-the-jackpot/
https://jimcassidy.com.au/hits-the-jackpot/#respondMon, 26 Sep 2016 04:20:19 +0000http://jimcassidy.com.au/?p=156Jim Cassidy’s first day of retirement at the track ended in a win and a better payday than many he enjoyed as a jockey, after hitting the jackpot in the final race at Rosehill on Saturday.

NEWS & EVENTS

Jim Cassidy’s first day of retirement at the track ended in a win and a better payday than many he enjoyed as a jockey, after hitting the jackpot in the final race at Rosehill on Saturday.

Cassidy entertained family and friends in a farewell function and as they went in for the last race he got up on a chair and told the crowd “hey everyone go and back the nine here [the Chris Waller-trained Cauthen’s Power].”

As Cauthen’s Power rolled to victory Cassidy roared with delight and he rode it as hard as anything he had done in the saddle as it was his first bet as “a free man”. He turned a modest wager into a very handsome dividend. And ironically enough, the race was his namesake, The ATC Farewells Jim Cassidy Handicap.

Jockeys are not allowed to bet under the rules and Cassidy was a novice as he walked to the TAB operator.

“I hadn’t had to do it before, so when I went up to put the bet on I had to ask someone what to do,” Cassidy said. “I had a first four with the winner to stand out from five other horses. Each of them had a meaning to me because of a name or something, and the one that ran fourth was number 10, which is [daughter] Piper’s age.

“Gee it was a buzz, now I know what the punters felt like when they were cheering one home I was on.”

The collect for Cassidy was more than what he got in a riding percentage for his final group 1 win on Grand Marshal in the Sydney Cup earlier in the year.

The money has been quickly tucked away by Cassidy. “It was luck, so you want to make the most of it and we have it spent already. It is not something that is going to happen everyday,” Cassidy said. “It was a great way to finish the day.”

The Hall of Fame jockey’s popularity among his peers and punters was clear through the afternoon and the crowd for the meeting was up nearly 40 per cent to farewell “Pumper”.

“It was a bit funny having a sweat in the morning and going to the races without my riding gear,” Cassidy said. “It was a great day with all the kids in the function and people in the public. It was beautiful to see everyone.

“The boys came out and gave me a send off as well and it is something I will always remember.”

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]]>https://jimcassidy.com.au/pumped-up-jim-cassidy/feed/0Jimmy Cassidy’s career was defined by big wins and headlines but his true colours shone when friends needed him mosthttps://jimcassidy.com.au/big-wins-and-headlines/
https://jimcassidy.com.au/big-wins-and-headlines/#respondFri, 15 Apr 2016 04:18:34 +0000http://jimcassidy.com.au/?p=153Twenty-five years after winning his first Wagga Gold Cup, former jockey Jim Cassidy will be at the Murrumbidgee Turf Club again in May, as a carnival ambassador.

NEWS & EVENTS

Twenty-five years after winning his first Wagga Gold Cup, former jockey Jim Cassidy will be at the Murrumbidgee Turf Club again in May, as a carnival ambassador.

In a better world, David Mavroudis would be there too. He’d be there with father John, mother Colleen and sister Jane Elkin – to toast Cassidy, a close family friend and a member of Australian Racing’s Hall of Fame, in the first autumn of his retirement. And celebrate his cousin Barbara’s business winning the naming rights to this year’s Cup.

“That whole week leading into the Cup for years in our family was such an exciting week…. When all that happened with David it just was never the same,” Jane says.

“I wasn’t there (in 2003) but I remember Mum and Dad and everyone getting on the phone and just going mental. It was amazing, so emotional. It was a bit freakish.”

Aged 28, David died in the Bali bombings of October 2002. The computer programmer – a talented sportsman with a sharp wit and gentle nature that saw him make friends easily – was one of 88 Australians killed, as he enjoyed an end-of-season footy trip with his rugby league team, the Coogee Dolphins.

“Funnily enough, the night before David went to Bali we all had dinner at my unit in the city,” Cassidy says.

“David was like a brother to me, you know. It was really hard. It was obviously a lot worse for Mav and Colleen and Janey… It hurt, but I had to be strong around John.

“I was trying to win the Caulfield Cup or the Melbourne Cup and be trying to dedicate it or something.”

Cassidy did win the Norman Robinson Stakes at Caulfield on Cup day, paying a public tribute to David after the emotional victory on Platinum Scissors.

With the Mavroudis family and friends gathered in Sydney for a memorial for the Bali victims, he had a hire car waiting at the races to take him to the airport as soon as the race had finished.

John recalls Cassidy’s support.

“When David… (Jimmy) just put everything down and said, ‘Look, I’m with you’. We couldn’t have asked for more.”

Jane says they were all lucky to have a big support network, which included Cassidy and wife Vicki and many more. Jane had just moved into their Coogee unit.

“I dropped them at the airport (to go to Melbourne for the spring carnival) and I was so excited because it was this amazing unit that overlooked Coogee. I was thinking all my Christmases had come at once. I was there one night and that was when all the dreaded crap went down.

“From that point on, Jimmy just kind of held the fort really. He was just handed the baton and went with it, as did Vicki.”

The pair kept an eye on Jane’s well-being, knowing better than she did that she was working through the stages of grief. Jane’s grateful too for Cassidy’s close relationship with her parents.

“He loves Wagga – loves nothing more than sitting around Mum’s dining room table. Dad and him have just always had that special bond, a real great mateship. They’re very different people at different stages of their lives (but) they just work.”

They do share a passion for yabbying.

“Jimmy used to bring his kids down and we’d go out for the day,” John says. “And our relationship, trying to get together more, has been more on yabbying. He flies up, we get the yabbies in and he flies back.”

When the jockey rode the Wagga feature double in 2003, the Town Plate was a late pick-up. When the call came, it interrupted their yabbying.

The pair have been mates since Cassidy won the 1991 Gold Cup on Greenback. The jockey – who had won his first Melbourne Cup eight years earlier as a 20-year old aboard Kiwi – rode for Rosehill-based New Zealander, Kerry Jordan.

The trainer’s brother, Chris, was the stable foreman. A former Kiwi rugby league international, Chris had been a friend of Mavroudis’ since 1977 when he came to play with Wagga Magpies, only to be denied a clearance by the NZRL.

“I ended up going back home but while I was there, Mav really looked after me,” Jordan says. “He loved a beer and a bet and so did I. I spent about four months there.”

They stayed in touch and it was through Jordan that Cassidy made his connection to Wagga. A fellow Kiwi with an infectious laugh not dissimilar to his compatriot, Jordan cracks up when he remembers a media interview in the build-up to the 1991 Cup.

“Jimmy was a bit of a cock-of-the-hoop kind of bloke and the reporter said to him, ‘Well, have you ever ridden around Wagga?’ Meaning, you know, it’s a different track – do you know your way around?

“And Jimmy’s response was, ‘Hasn’t it got a running rail?’ Hahahaha.

“That was Jimmy, basically, ‘As long as it’s got a rail, I know how to ride the track!’”

It was classic Cassidy – puns and personality backed up by performance.

When he retired last November, a couple of months shy of his 53rd birthday, Cassidy had won 104 Group One races and is one of a select few to complete racing’s grand slam of the Melbourne Cup (twice), Caulfield Cup (twice), Cox Plate and Golden Slipper.

But he was almost as well known for the catch-cries ‘Ring-a-ding-ding, Jimmy’s the king’ and ‘Clickety-clack, the Pumper’s back’ that inevitably followed the big successes.

“He puts a bit of a show on and I think it’s funny – I always laugh at him – but he’s far from that person that people think he is,” Jane says.

“He’s got one of the biggest hearts I know. He’d do anything for his family and friends.”

Jordan says there was talent to match the larger-than-life personality.

“None better I don’t think, on his day. Jimmy could sit three deep in a race and they’d keep running for him. I don’t know how he did it. Any other jock could sit three deep like that and they’d be getting a stitch at the 600 but Jimmy just – if he did get caught deep, he had an amazing knack to be able to keep the horse going. He’s a wonderful horseman, Jimmy, and a champion bloke.”

He remains a patron of the Coogee Dolphins, lending his support to club events and proudly wearing the team’s colours. And he’s looking forward to his next trip to Wagga.

“Life’s got to go on but you never forget,” Cassidy says. “Look, there were sad days, there were good days. There were days we laughed and reflected on David and different things.

“There’s always sadness but down the end of the tunnel there’s always light and there’s laughter and that’s what we’re able to do.”

It’s with the same attitude that Cassidy looks back on his career, from the joys of multiple success on racing’s biggest days, to the lows of a 21-month ban for the jockey tapes scandal. It’s enough to fill a book – and there’s one on the way.

“It’ll be a good story, there will be plenty of things that people didn’t know,” Cassidy says. “People will be able to make up their own mind on a lot of things. Without giving much away, it’s the old saying ‘you do the crime, you do the time’ but sometimes it shouldn’t have gone that way.”